


Left Hand Rings

by lielabell



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, M/M, Misunderstandings, Woke Up Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 07:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lielabell/pseuds/lielabell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dude, I don't know,” Stiles says, “I went to bed last night and woke up this morning with Danny all snuggled up next to me and a shiny ring on my finger.  Matte gray with some awesome looking carvings on it. Real classy, actually.  I'm kind of impressed with my dream-self right now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Left Hand Rings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sparkysparky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkysparky/gifts).



> This fic was written for Sparkysparky who asked for the following: 
> 
> _[H]ow about something along the lines of the "woke up married" trope, with Stiles/Danny as the pairing. If you can throw in some pining, angst and misunderstandings along with it, that'd be awesome. However the "woke up married" trope needs to be carried out is fine (accidental fairy wedding, drunk in Vegas, etc.) Smut is okay too, if it fits into the story naturally._
> 
> I tried my best, my dear. I do hope you like it. :D
> 
> Also: <3 <3 <3 to my darling beta, Queenitsy!

"So I think I might have married Danny? In my sleep?" 

Scott lets out a yelp. "What?"

"Dude, I don't know,” Stiles says, “I went to bed last night and woke up this morning with Danny all snuggled up next to me and a shiny ring on my finger. Matte gray with some awesome looking carvings on it. Real classy, actually. I'm kind of impressed with my dream-self right now." 

"Stiles!" Scott's voice has gone high with incredulity. "What are you talking about? No one goes to bed and wakes up married. That doesn't happen. Not even in movies."

Stiles lets out a chuckle, "I think you haven't been watching the right kind of movies--" but Scott cuts him off with an indignant squawk.

Stiles winces, holding the phone away from his ear as Scott jabbers on about Stiles missing the point. Which isn't true, thank you very much. Stiles gets the point. No one goes to sleep and wakes up married. Not unless they are Sleeping Beauty or something, and even she probably had a party or something to make it official. 

Stiles is twenty-seven, single, and successful enough to have been sent to Vegas to man his company’s booth at the CES. He’s a grown up now, in every sense of the word. Things like this? They don’t happen to grown ups. Not in real, boring life. The kind that doesn’t have anything to do with fairies or witches or anything supernatural at all. Which is exactly the kind of life Stiles has been living, thank you very much.

So then how in the hell did this happen? 

He bites his lip, glancing down at the ring on his finger, then back over his shoulder at his not-as-empty-as-it-ought-to-be bed. 

His bed that has Danny in it. 

A sexy, sleep rumpled Danny who is sitting up and smiling at Stiles like Stiles always sort of wished he would, but never thought would actually happen. 

"Yeah, I'm going to go now," Stiles says, because Danny is smiling at him and why is he still talking to Scott when Danny is smiling at him? He drops his phone, not really bothering to see if he hung up or not, and crosses the room to... well... stand awkwardly besides Danny, who is looking at him in a way that Stiles would be tempted to call besotted, if that made any sense at all.

"So, uh," Stiles rubs the back of his head. "Left hand rings?"

Danny’s smile deepens to the point where his dimple makes an appearance. He gives a little laugh. “Yeah, a bit impulsive of us, but, well. You were there. You know.”

Stiles’s heart does this horrible swooping thing and he grimaces. “Uh,” he says, because what are words right now?

Danny loses his happy smile, his eyes going confused. “Stiles?” 

“Uh.” Stiles scratches at the side of his neck. 

Danny licks at his bottom lip, then nods. "Are you having regrets? You said that might happen. You said if morning-you was having regrets, I was supposed to do this.” Danny gets out of the bed and wraps his arms around Stiles’s waist, squeezing just the right amount. He gives Stiles a hopeful look and a lopsided smile, then ducks down and brushes his lips across Stiles’s. 

It feels nice-- really nice-- and Stiles would like to keep doing it, but... well, it seems wrong. Like Stiles is kissing Danny under false pretences. Because Danny clearly has some idea what is going on here, and Stiles most assuredly does not. So he pulls back with a forced laugh. 

“Um, I’m really sorry. That was, seriously, the very definition of bliss, but,” Stiles winces a little, teeth scraping against his lip as he shrugs, “can you please tell me what is going on right now? What happened last night?”

Danny’s face loses all expression. He closes his eyes briefly, takes a step back and sinks down onto the bed. “What do you remember happening?” Danny asks, his voice carefully free of emotion.

"I remember coming up to my room all pissed off about,” Stiles shrugs, “it doesn’t even matter what, and deciding to have a drink or two, and then I woke up and you were here?"

"Oh." Danny's voice is flat. He clears his throat. "Um, wow. That's," he rubs at his face with one hand, "not what I was hoping to hear."

Stiles hates the way Danny's face sort of closes off. He chews on his lip, wishing he knew what was going on right now. Nothing makes sense. They've never even flirted with each other. Okay, alright, not true. Stiles has flirted. Stiles has flirted _a lot_. But Danny has always brushed off his attempts at, well, anything. To the point where, if you had asked Stiles yesterday, he would have said there was absolutely zero chance of Danny liking him as more than a friend. 

What the actual fuck is his life?

It's not like Stiles has never thought of Danny like that-- Stiles has thought of Danny like that since he first figured out what _like that_ entailed-- but Danny wasn’t Lydia and Stiles had been pretty focused on Lydia for, well, always, and so what would have otherwise been a pretty impressive crush was sidelined to make room for the Stiles Stilinski Patented Five Year Plan to Make Lydia Martin Love Me (TM).

And it stayed sidelined, even when the Five Year Plan turned into a Ten Year Plan turned into no plan at all. Because Lydia Martin, fierce, fabulous goddess that she was, had lady bits and touching those, it turns out, isn’t something that Stiles is actually all that interested in doing. Touching man bits, on the other hand, was definitely up Stiles’s alley. 

But touching Danny’s bits?

Yeah. No. Stiles isn’t going to go down that route again, thanks. He’s perfectly happy being friends with Danny -- something his younger self never would have believed possible. Something he still doesn’t really believe was possible, never mind that their friendship is very firmly in place and had been since junior year of high school, when Jackson spilt town without so much as a goodbye and left Danny in the lurch. 

Back then, Stiles kept waiting for the other shoe to drop when Danny started voluntarily spending time with him, acting like he and Stiles had always been friends, instead of two guys whose friendship circles just happened to overlap. Back then, Stiles was convinced that he was one round of verbal diarrhea away from getting kicked back out of Danny’s affections. 

Hell, he might as well admit it, sometimes he’s _still_ convinced he’s half an ill-conceived conversation away from losing someone he’s come to consider one of his best friends. 

So waking up married to him? 

Yeah. That’s something Stiles really could have done without. 

Stiles licks at his lips. This is going to be awkward. No way it won’t be. And while he’s pretty damn familiar with awkward, awkward is still not something he enjoys being. Stiles sighs, reaches up, and cups the back of his head, opening his mouth to say god knows what.

Thankfully, his phone decides to start ringing right at that moment. Stiles has never been more relieved to answer it, though hearing Lydia snark, “I thought 'ho hum, I woke up married' only happened in badly written movies,” is less than pleasant making. 

"Hi Lydia, so nice to hear from you. Anything new happening in your life?" he deadpans.

"Nothing interesting is happening in my life," she replies dismissively. "So how about you fill me in on all the wonderful and interesting things happening in yours."

"Yeah, how do you even know about that anyway?" Stiles glances over his shoulder at Danny. "Did you tell her?"

Danny glances up from his phone. "Hm?"

"Lydia." 

Danny still looks blank. 

"Did you tell her? About us and the, you know, surprise! Married!" He does jazz hands. Danny does not look impressed. Stiles sighs and shakes his head. "I'll take that as a no." He turns his back on Danny and his unimpressed expression, holding the phone back up to his ear.

"...only you, Stiles," she's saying. 

Stiles doesn't know what came before, but he can guess. He closes his eyes briefly, then decides that he's just not ready to have this conversation yet. "Look, Lydia, you know I adore you and treasure your every word," she snorts loudly, "but right now I kind of have to, you know, deal with this situation. I'll call you later, when I have the details, alright?"

She sniffs. "You had better."

"Right, yeah. Love you too," Stiles tells the dial tone. He shakes his head then slips the phone into the back pocket of his jeans and turns towards Danny with what he hopes isn't an awkward smile on his face. 

Danny doesn’t smile back. If anything, he frowns. Stiles’s stomach starts to ache and he does a nervous half step. 

“So, um.” He hooks his thumbs into the front loops on his jeans. “We should probably talk about what happened or something, right?”

Danny presses his lips together and nods, looking resigned. “I just want to say, before this gets any farther, that I thought you were all on board too, you know, do this. You didn’t seem like you were drunk or out of it at all. I mean, sure, it was a bit of a shock, you coming on to me after all these years.” Danny gives a self-deprecating laugh. “And the wanting to get married thing...” He runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I should have known it wasn’t kosher. But,” he glances up at Stiles, an earnest expression on his face, “I wouldn’t have said yes to any of it if I thought you weren’t sincere.” 

Stiles shrugs a little. “I, um, I’m really, really good at holding my liquor,” he admits. “Most people can’t tell when I’m drunk. It’s in my genes, same as my big brown eyes and my tendency to ferret my way to the bottom of any mystery I happened to come across.” He kind of winces. “I can’t remember much of last night, I know I had a few drinks at the bar before turning in, but nothing that would cause me to black out. But,” he walks over to the trash can and looks in it. “Yeah. I thought that was the case,” he says as he reaches in and pulls out a handful of empty mini-bottles of Jack. “Jesus. I thought I was done doing this shit.” Stiles sucks on his lower lip and shamefacedly glances up at Danny. “I swear, I haven’t blacked out since I finished college and grew up enough not to think that drinking games are a fun time.”

Danny gives him a pained look before staring out the window at the view of the strip. “You didn’t seem drunk,” he says, a little faintly, “but you did say that you had had a long day and had spent the better part of an hour trying to unwind before giving up and going to sleep. I, uh, woke you when I called. But you said it was no problem, you said you were cool to meet up. And when you came down, you seemed like yourself. Well, a less tense, more mellow version of yourself, anyway. But I haven’t seen you in person since, god, what? The summer between junior and senior year in college? And who knows how much people change in six years?”

“Yeah, I’ve only been home for the odd holiday since then,” Stiles agrees. “I love the place, and I love my dad, but you’ve got to go where the work is and, well, you’re in the same boat as me, right? High paying tech jobs just don’t exist in Beacon Hills.”

Danny lifts a shoulder, still looking out at the view. “I feel you there,” he says, but his voice is all wrong. Flat and unhappy, not like Danny’s voice is supposed to be at all. 

Stiles studies him for a long moment, taking in the long lines of his body, the way the early morning sunlight seems to kiss his skin. He’s beautiful, sitting there looking like some Dolce and Gabbana ad come to life. What the hell is a guy like Danny doing in Stiles’s bed? Not that Stiles isn’t able to pull the occasional muscle-bound hottie, but there are muscle-bound hotties, and then there is _Danny._

“Why did you say yes?” Stiles asks, because it doesn’t make sense to him at all. 

Danny turns back towards him with a frown on his face. "What?"

"I mean, I get the me falling over and asking you to marry me thing," Stiles sort of grimaces. "I was trashed and I've had a pretty big thing for you since, you know, ever. But what I don't get is why you went along with it. Getting married, that is. It’s kind of a big step, is all, and you’re, well, I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of guy who just said yes to just anyone."

Danny’s expression goes pinched, almost pained. His hands fist in the bedding and he looks back out the window, voice strained, as he says, “You’re not just anyone.”

Stiles gives him squint-eyes-- there’s no other word for it-- his mouth dropping open in what is probably an unflattering manner. “Excuse me?” he says, because that just does not compute.

Danny doesn’t respond for a long moment, just keeps staring out the window like the hustle and bustle of the strip is the most fascinating thing he has ever seen. Then his shoulders slump and he lets out a sigh. “I didn’t say yes to ‘just anyone,’ Stiles. I said yes to _you_.” He shakes his head. “Not that it matters,” he says under his breath. 

“Um, yes. It does matter. It matters very, very much,” Stiles tells him, his voice rising with each word. “Because, hello there my high school crush who barely acknowledged me until his best friend ditched him. Hi. Remember that? Remember how I was so into you I _fell_ out of my _chair_? And remember how you laughed about that with Jackson?”

Stiles laughs sourly. “Because I do. And I also remember how you told me to stop asking you if I was attractive, which, yeah, I should have got when you didn’t answer me the first hundred times, but still. Did you have to be such a dick about it? I mean, I know I simmered down and we all just pretended like I wasn’t stupid into you and then we went to college and I started having actual adult relationships with people who liked me as much, if not more, than I liked them. But that doesn’t change the fact that I mooned over you for years, way longer than I did over Lydia, and you never showed the slightest bit of interest in me at all.” 

Stiles gives him a bitter smile. “So, yeah. It matters, alright?” 

“What?” Danny’s brow furrows in confusion. “You didn’t,” he makes a frustrated sound. “Stiles, what are you talking about right now?”

Stiles gives another of those mocking laughs because of course. Of course Danny is going to play dumb and act like... Stiles doesn’t even know what he’s acting like. Probably like Derek when someone pointed out that he was making shity life choices again. All “who? what? me?” with sad puppy eyes and everything, because that’s how the unfairly gorgeous roll. 

“Whatever,” Stiles says, rubbing at his temples like that will make the massive headache he’s developing go away. “Look, people do stupid things in Vegas. I’m sure it’s just as easy to end an ill-advised marriage here as it is to get into one. So how about I just do some of my Google magic and we all just forget any of this ever happened?”

“How about you sit down and explain what that rant was about,” Danny shoots back. 

Stiles tips his head back and stares at the ceiling for a long moment, then he lets out a sigh and meets Danny’s eyes. “Sorry,” he says, not feeling particularly sorry at all. “I shouldn’t have dragged the past into this. Look, I know you never felt the same way, and, dude. It was a crush. Sure, I get a bit epic and crazy with my crushes, but it was a crush. And I got over it.” He lifts a shoulder. “At least I thought I did, until I woke up married to you. And then it just got a bit intense because, yeah, I might have maybe fantasized about that and never once thought that it would happen as a case of ‘too much to drink in Vegas’ you know?”

“You fantasized about marrying me?” Danny asks, because of course that is what he latches on to. Of freaking course. 

Stiles gnaws at his lip, trying to think of something to say that will keep him from digging an even bigger hole. Unfortunately, nothing comes to mind. So he just sort of shrugs and says, “Well, yeah. Dude, you’re a catch.”

Danny snorts. “Catch and release, more like.” 

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Um, no. Definitely the catch and keep for all times sort. Trust me on this one, Danny. You got it all. Looks, personality, and a healthy bank account, too. Boy, you are lucky no gold digger has got his claws into you.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s why you’re so damn eager for a divorce. Because I’ve got it all.” Danny’s voice is bitter, the look on his face ugly. 

Stiles makes a choked sort of noise. “Danny, if I thought for an instant that you wanted me, I would cling to your fine ass like a barnacle. But, um, you don’t. And I learned a long time ago not to chase after people who don’t want me. So stop acting like this is some giant rejection of you on my part. It’s not. It’s never been me who has done the rejecting. Okay?”

“I’m acting like you are rejecting me _because you are rejecting me_.” Danny pushes off the bed angrily. “Jesus, Stiles. Just stop already.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m going to take a shower now. When I come out, we can go do whatever needs to be done. And then you and I can go our merry ways and never talk about this again. Fuck.” Danny wrenches his wedding ring off of his finger and tosses it down onto the bedside table. Then he storms past a speechless Stiles and slams into the bathroom.

Stiles stares after him, then looks down at his hand and rubs his ring with his thumb. It’s a nice ring, much nicer than anything Stiles would think to buy. Which means it must have been Danny’s choice. Stiles slowly makes his way over to the bedside table and picks up Danny’s ring. Stiles studies the thick band of metal, running the pad of his pointer finger over the sharp lines of the engraving and thinks.

He’s still standing there, head bent over the ring in his hand, when the water cuts off and Danny comes back into the room. 

“Hey,” Danny says sheepishly. 

He’s got water running down his chest and a fluffy, white towel slung low on his hips and god. Stiles wouldn’t mind starting every morning seeing that. He swallows dryly, then tilts his head to the side and gives Danny a hopeful grin. “Hey,” he says back.

“So, um, did you?” Danny gestures to the hotel desk, where Stiles’s laptop is sitting, screen black. 

“About that,” Stiles says slowly, his hand tightening around Danny’s ring. “Look, correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t seem as thrilled to untie the knot as I would have thought. And, well, level with me here, Danny. Are you, I mean, would you even...” He squeezes his eyes shut and sucks in a breath. “I want to try. If you want to, that is.”

Danny peers at Stiles as if trying to uncover a trick. “Try what, exactly?”

Stiles licks his lips. “Try being married. To you. I think I would like that. A lot.”

“Me too,” Danny says, hesitantly. 

Stiles lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Thank Jesus,” he says with a relieved laugh. “Now let’s get this back on you. Can’t have anyone thinking your fine ass is up for grabs.” And he strides over to Danny, doing a stellar job of not staring at his abs and drooling like an idiot. “Here,” he catches Danny’s left hand and pulls it up, slipping the ring back into place. “That’s more like it.”

“No,” Danny says softly, his right hand coming up to cup the back of Stiles’s head, “this is more like it.” And then he’s moving in, pulling Stiles close for a kiss and hell yeah. Stiles is going to love married life.


End file.
